


birthday conundrum

by Seito



Series: tick tock, forward and back (time travel fics) [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dad!Cor, Fluff, Gen, Loneliness, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 06:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17157236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seito/pseuds/Seito
Summary: “Talk,” Cor said. “Who are you? And what do you want with Prompto Argentum?”“His uncle?” Argent squeaked.Cor growled. “Try again.”Argent flinched. “Okay. I know better than to lie you. I’m Prompto Argentum from the future.”Cor pressed his blade closer, drawing blood. “Try again.”





	birthday conundrum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lulubugg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lulubugg/gifts).



Prompto sat on the steps leading up to his apartment, not willing to make the final trek upstairs. What was the point? No one was home and he didn't want the constant reminder that he was spending his 8th birthday alone.

“Hey, everything alright?”

Prompto looked up to see a lanky blond haired man grinning at him.

“Yeah,” Prompto said glumly.

“Doesn't sound like it is,” the man said.

“It's nothing,” Prompto said. “Just my birthday.”

“That sounds like a happy occasion,” the man said. “A friend once told me that birthdays are not only for you, but others, because they want you in their life.”

Prompto frowned. “I don't have any friends and my parents aren't here.”

His parents were always gone. And as a friend… he winced, remembering his attempt to make friends with Prince Noctis just the other day. As if things couldn't get worse.

The man hummed. “That won't do. How about I treat you to a birthday dinner then?”

Prompto gave him a wary look. “I'm not supposed to go anywhere with strangers. Who are you?”

The man flailed. “Oh um, you can call me, um, Argent.”

Prompto didn't believe him for one minute. That had to be a made up name.

“Come on,” Argent said. “I promise. I'm not going to hurt you or anything. There's this place down the street that serves the best green curry ever. It's your birthday, an auspicious occasion.”

“Auspicious?” Prompto asked.

“A favorable and good occasion,” Argent said. He held out his hand to help Prompto up. “What do you say?”

Well. It wasn't like Prompto had anything to lose and the idea of spending his birthday with someone was tempting.

“Alright,” Prompto said.

Bitterly, he thought, ‘It's not like someone will notice.’

-.-.-

Someone did notice.

That someone was Cor.

Cor could, in the safety of his mind and far away from a certain troublesome King who seemed to always know what Cor was thinking, admit that he had a soft spot for Prompto Argentum.

It wasn't required for Cor to check up on Prompto. Crownsguard had ruled him a healthy, normal boy about three years ago, but Cor kept his tradition of sneaking birthday gifts on Prompto's birthday.

Imagine his surprise when he went to do so, only to find a strange blond haired man coaxing Prompto into buying him dinner. Argent huh? Ever a false name if Cor heard one. Clearly just a chopped up name from Prompto's last name.

Now the question was why.

Cor sneakily followed after them. True to Argent's word, they had gone to a small restaurant just down the straight. Two bowls of green curry were ordered and Cor watched from across the street, hidden in the shadows as the two blonds took a seat and begun eating.

Argent was… animated. Always gesturing with his hands, a wide grin that never left his face. Oh it wavered a few times, but never broke. Prompto, the quiet (possibly depressed Cor had noted sourly) kid was slowly but surely drawn in the conversation. By the time they had finished eating, Prompto was laughing and smiling brightly.

A generous scoop of ice cream for Prompto and overall, Cor could grudgingly admit, not a bad way to spend a birthday.

Argent then escorted Prompto back home, bidding him good night and left, disappearing into the shadows of the night before Cor could cross the street to tail him.

Maybe… Cor had to give the man the benefit of doubt. Obvious false name aside, it looked like the man really had just wanted to help celebrate Prompto's birthday.

Except he came back.

(Cor wasn't worried. Paranoid, yes, but not _worried._ Cor the Immortal didn't do _worry_.)

(But here he was, checking on Prompto for the second day in a row and there was Argent pressing a bag of fresh vegetables and fruits into an open arms of a wide eyed Prompto.)

Further insult to injury, Argent kept coming back, every day. And little by little Prompto opened up to him until he was looking forward to seeing Argent. gent. (Cor wasn’t _jealous_!) Cor couldn’t figure out what his plan was.

It had been two weeks now, and Argent was a permanent fixture in young Prompto’s life. Every day, after school, Argent was there, crossing paths with young Prompto (crossing paths deliberately). During the day, Argent did all sorts of odd jobs, running all over the city, taking photographs of cats (and selling them too, there was an actual market for cat photos), and seemed to rent a falling apart apartment that Cor was sure was illegal and needed to be condemned.

He also wasn’t a registered Lucian citizen, there was no one Cor could find that matched Argent description. The blond hair, a Niflheim trait, made him stand out like a sore thumb.

It was as if the man was trying to stand out as a spy, while doing absolutely nothing like a spy.

Was it because someone had finally put it together that Cor had a soft spot for Prompto? Or because he was trying to do something to Prompto? Some leftover programming or experiment that they hadn’t discovered? (To this day, it made Cor’s blood boil with the thought of whatever they had been trying to do Prompto. He hadn’t be able to discover what exactly, but the doctors in Lucis swore up and down that Prompto was nothing but a healthy young boy.)

“So what has your attention so preoccupied, Cor?” Regis asked, barely looking from the paperwork he was signing.

“It’s nothing,” Cor said.

Regis stopped long enough to merely arched an eyebrow at Cor.

Troublesome, meddlesome King.

“It’s Prompto,” Cor conceded.

“Oh? Is something wrong?” Regis asked.

“There’s an adult stranger hanging around him,” Cor said. “Not in any of our systems, using a false name.”

Regis paused, looking Cor straight in the eye. “A threat?”

“Motivations unknown,” Cor said. “Looks like a spy, has shady actions like a spy, but has done nothing to act like it. The man takes photographs of cats and does odd jobs around the city. His questionable circumstances around his birth aside, Prompto isn’t a viable means of getting information from the Crown.”

“Unless he wants to home grow Prompto,” Regis calmly remarked.

Cor growled.

“The other alternative is he’s a predator, grooming a lonely child whose guardians are frequently out of the city,” Cor hissed.

There was an audible snap of Regis’ pen.

No surprise. Prompto’s close age to Noctis made Regis extra protective by extension.

“If you must strike, strike,” Regis said.

Cor nodded. He was Regis’ Sword. It was his job to take out threats before they got too serious. And if the threat only happened to be a small time predator, preying on the wrong lonely child, well, Regis clearly approved of that too.

It was high time for Cor to talk to ‘Argent’.

-.-.-

Cornering Argent had… actually be troublesome. Slippery, and now that Cor was actively pursuing him, clearly trained. So that was one more tally for the spy theory.

But finally Cor managed to trap him in an abandoned building. Cor pinned him to the wall, sword placed against Argent’s throat.

“Talk,” Cor said. “Who are you? And what do you want with Prompto Argentum?”

“His uncle?” Argent squeaked.

Cor growled. “Try again.”

Argent flinched. “Okay. I know better than to lie you. I’m Prompto Argentum from the future.”

Cor pressed his blade closer, drawing blood. “Try again.”

“Hey! The last one is true!” Argent said. “I got the same barcode and everything. Also it’s really nice to know you did stalk me a lot as a kid. Thought I use to imagine seeing you when I was younger.”

Cor scowled.

Argent if possible, just rampanted up harder. “I’m serious. Time travel.”

“So what, you traveled back in time to what, adopt yourself,” Cor said dryly.

“No,” Argent said. The light in his eyes flickered, dying and growing impossibly old. This wasn’t the same cheerful man Cor had been shadowing. This was a soldier who had seen the worse on the battlefield and somehow made it out of the fight alive.

“No,” Argent repeated. “Mini-me will appreciate the company, but no, sir. There’s so much more.”

Cor narrowed his eyes, weighing his decisions. Finally he stepped back, sheathing his sword and letting Kotetsu disappear back into armiger. “All right then. You’re going to tell me everything. And if I believe you, you get to live. If I don’t, you’re dead.”

Argent gave him a wary look. “Not going to drag me in front of the King?”

Cor snorted. “No. Regis trusts my decisions.”

Argent gave him a sharp look. “King’s Sword. Right. Noct mentioned that.”

Impressive. He at least knew that. The King’s Sword (sometimes, the King’s Hand) wasn’t exactly public knowledge. It was an invisible position, often masquerading as something else.

“You really want to go over everything here?” Argent asked, glancing around the the abandoned warehouse.

True. This wasn’t the most secure places.

“Do you still have that safehouse on 3rd?” Argent asked.

That… was interesting. Cor did. In fact, he had set it up not even a month ago. But why did Argent (even if he was really Prompto) know about that?

Argent shrugged, reading his thought. “There was an assassination on Noct when we were sixteen. That’s the place you stashed us in while the clean up was happening.”

“Alright then,” Cor said. “Lead the way.”

If Argent could lead him to the safehouse, Cor was incline to let him live long enough to tell his outrageous story.

And if it was true and anyway as bad as it looked in Argent’s eyes… well. Then Cor had more cleaning up to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays :D
> 
> Please leave a review on your way out!


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